Christine Marcus Is Here to Rescue Your Sad Desk Lunch
The founder of the catering company Alchemista wants to make Boston’s offices feel like the hottest new restaurant in town.
Photo by Pat Piasecki / Hair and makeup by Bre Welch
The impetus for Alchemista came in 2012, while I was at MIT and none of our catered meals were memorable. One night, my classmate brought in food from his Italian restaurant and it was so much better than anything we had, and he told me that most restaurants don’t do corporate catering.
I’m trying to elevate and disrupt the corporate food-service space and bring it to a new hospitality level so eating a meal at the office will be like eating in your favorite restaurant.
We’re offering clients the best from local restaurants that reflect Boston’s diverse food community. We look cohesive, but all of the food is from different eateries. And we’re the first and only company doing this right now.
Our clients are companies competing for top talent. They’re vying against Google for the same employees, so they want to offer the same perks. But Google has chefs cooking 24/7, and most companies don’t want to do that. So that’s where we come in.
The number of companies coming to Boston keeps growing because of how innovative, creative, and talented our workforce is, and these high-paying jobs keep our graduates here. One of our clients is a French pharmaceutical company that just opened its first North American headquarters in Kendall Square.
You’re the first person to know this, but we just leased a former restaurant space on Atlantic Avenue, which is a total game changer. We’ll have our own commercial kitchen where our culinary liaison, Nevin Taylor, will put together seasonal, healthy, unique menus. We’ll help companies connect with the city’s food culture.
